Use Me
by silvermisery
Summary: She needed him for the pain he gave her. He needed her for the love she didn't give him. She wanted relief from her guilt; he just wanted someone to love him. They reveled in their shared pain. D/Hr. Very, very dark.


Disclaimer: Really. I swear. None of it is mine.

**A/N: This is quite possibly the most messed up thing I have ever written in my entire life. I do not condone abusive relationships, and this is no way in support of violence. Wallowing in guilt is the highest form of selfishness. Don't copy either of their examples. Lyrics from Garbage's **_**Use Me. **_**One of their awesome songs, I love love love that band. Please don't hate me for this story, Emily…**

"See ya later, Mione. Take care of yourself."

The last words she had heard him say before he had taken a Killing Curse for her in the midst of battle. She had been fighting Dolohov, and all of a sudden Lucius Malfoy had just shot a jet of green light at her, and she was shielding against Dolohov's _Stupefy _and she could see it coming but there was no time to do anything, no way to duck, and she could see death staring her in the face—

And there was a blur of red and a hoarse shout and the next thing she saw was Ron's blue eyes staring blankly up at the sky.

Dead. He was dead. He wasn't ever going to laugh in that way he had when he checkmated Dean, or bicker with her over whether or not he should do his homework, or get all fired up over the latest Quidditch moves. And it was all because of her.

All her fault.

"We did it, Hermione! We won! That'll show them, those—"

And his eyes bulged as his hand flew up to the scar that was slowly widening, tearing the skin of his forehead apart, so gradually that she could see the threads of skin fraying until they snapped and twisted apart. Blood burst in an arc of scarlet and flew everywhere, spattering everyone with small droplets of red. A hoarse, animalistic scream tore from his throat as his knees crumpled and he fell to the ground, clutching at his forehead, a horrible scream that no teenager should have been capable of making.

"Harry—Harry, God, Harry, answer me, are you all right, hold on for just a while longer, please, Madam Pomfrey's on her way, Harry, Harry, please, for God's sake, _Harry…_"

His glasses flew off his nose and went careening into the ground, landing at a crazy angle with one of the earpieces tilted beyond repair. Shattered glass was scattered in the near vicinity of the black wire frame, and, mechanically, she Banished it so that no one would step on it.

His struggles were weakening, and his thrashing grew smaller, but the flow of blood seemed never-ending, scarlet against his pale, pale face. Green eyes slowly fluttered open, and he gave a sort of smile, giving a laugh which ended into a wretched gasping racking cough as a bubble of blood slowly emerged from his half-open mouth.

"Harry?"

She watched as the boy with whom she had eaten together, studied together, laughed together, fought together collapsed in on himself and died, his body only an empty shell of what had been, and it was all because of her.

Because of her faulty spell. They said later that it wasn't her fault, she couldn't have known, the spell had killed Voldemort after all, hadn't it? She had created a spell to kill the greatest Dark Lord in centuries, she should be proud, she couldn't have known.

_I should have known! _She shouted at them.

And it was all her fault.

_Use me, I'm beautiful_

_Take me, I'm yours_

_Hurt me, it feels like medicine_

_And all I deserve._

"I don't understand, Hermione. Why would you do this to yourself?" Ginny stared at the bruises freshly forming on her friend's face where her lover had smacked her on the face in a fit of temper.

"I love him," she whispered, and knew she was lying.

"This—this isn't right. There are therapists for this kind of thing. You should at least live apart for a while, if not break up all together. And—you promised me you'd never have sex before marriage! What happened to you?"

"War," she whispered, and hurried away. Draco would be furious if she was late.

She was, and he was. He snarled at her, incomprehensible litany of fury and hate and contempt, and she stood there and took it, no, loved it, reveled in it, begged for more as his hand flew through the air and collided with her face, a large, open slap that left her reeling. Moaning, she leaned into the impact even as gravity made her lurch away, and his face twisted.

"You love it, don't you, you filthy Mudblood whore?" he said, voice low and twisted beyond recognition. "I could take you, right now, on the floor, pound into you until you were bleeding, and you'd just beg for more."

"Yes…" she moaned.

His face contorted with rage and something else, something she couldn't place, and leapt at her, sending her crashing to the floor even as his hands tore and tugged at her clothing.

And when he was through, she staggered to where her clothes lay on the floor and dressed herself slowly, mindful of her bruises and soreness, and managed a few cleaning and glamour charms before lurching out the door. Draco watched her with aloof gray eyes that somehow seemed so incredibly sad.

They were married. The Weasleys refused to come to the wedding, saying they could not condone her marriage to an abusive husband. The Malfoys refused to come, saying they would not disown their son, as it would cause too much of a fuss, but that they could not condone his marriage to a Mudblood.

The only people there was the wizard marrying them and Remus and Tonks, who thought that they were seriously messed up and should seek counseling but were still, after all, their friends.

When they got home, Draco seemed strangely reluctant to fuck her as usual, saying he was tired. He overlooked the fact that she burned the food slightly and glared at him all throughout the meal, but when she deliberately called him a bastard to his face, the familiar rage flared in his eyes, and he threw her against the wall. He fucked her hard and thoroughly, all the while muttering his string of abuse into her ear. "_You want this, don't you. You make me do this. I hate you, you goddamn bitch. You make me sick."_ When he was through with her, he spat and turned on his heel, but he wasn't quick enough to disguise the sheen shimmering on his face.

It was a destructive spiral, her guilt and his love, her need and his hate, twisting them all in a desperate circle downwards, forever downwards toward their impending doom, one they could not escape, not now. He came to her in the middle of the night and screamed at her, and she leaned forward into his violence that drew her like a fly to a lamp. He screamed at her and cried for her and leaned forward into her indifference that he tried desperately to imagine into love.

He loved her; she needed him; he hated her; she wanted him. He watched her cry with avid obsession, scooping up her tears with one fingertip and tasting them on his tongue, compensation for all the tears he cried alone. She watched him strive for her love and let him cry into the night with the righteous satisfaction of one well avenged for the pain he gave her, the pain she needed and the pain she hated him for.

They delighted in each other's pain.

_Oh what a crazy time_

_I've been a fool_

_On a wild ride to oblivion_

_I lost my mind._

Wizards and witches live a long time, and their bodies, though aged, really don't deteriorate as quickly as Muggles do, not until the very end of their lives, a fact proved by Albus Dumbledore's surprising nimble agility. Hermione and Draco could have lived until they were approximately a hundred and thirty, something Remus and Tonks continually reminded them as they visited and saw Draco's wan face, Hermione's bruises, the circles beneath both their eyes. They were slowly dying, when they were not even quite forty, young even for nonmagical folks, unbelievably so for wizards.

Surprisingly, or perhaps not so, Draco gave out first, and he rarely, if ever, got up from his bed. Though this meant he could no longer give her the pain she so desperately craved to assuage the guilt, she couldn't just leave him, some last lingering remnant of Gryffindor morals compelling her to stay and look after him. He cursed her, a stream of vituperation forever on his lips. It sounded like music to her ears.

He demanded, "Why don't you leave? Haven't I done enough to you already?"

She only laughed, a bitter, dead sort of laugh, and shook her head.

He woke her up in the middle of the night. "Hermione," he said. Her name sounded strange on his lips. "Hermione, I'm dying."

She stared at him as the moonlight bathed his face, all sharp silver angles and hollow cheekbones. What was she supposed to do, to say? She hadn't loved him—had never loved him, only instinctively sought him out as the only acquaintance she had who could give her the life she needed. She had needed him—still did. But she had never felt anything for him.

His grip on her wrist tightened spasmodically, and he drew her close to him. "Why?" he asked in a whisper.

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

"I loved you, you know. I would have done anything for you."

Shock rushed through her veins, a roaring in her ears. The world spun around her, fell away, crashed into dust, as she stared at him, her gaze affixed there by some strange compelling.

"But all you wanted me to do…" he broke off in a fit of coughing. "All you wanted me to do was fuck you. Hit you. _Hurt _you. So I did it. I would do anything for you. And you hated me for it.

"But you begged me to, deliberately provoked me to, made me a monster. And I couldn't even blame you, because what kind of man would do that to a woman, no matter what she did? I was a monster, just like they all said, and the Order was right not to trust me. They should have put me in Azkaban. Remus should never have testified at my trial. But then I justified myself by saying you would just have found someone else, someone worse, someone who at least wouldn't love you like I did."

She just kept staring at him, horror filling her face as what she had known was laid out in bare bones for her to realize what she had done to him with her indifference.

"My God…" the incredulous whisper dropped dead in the silence that somehow muted it all.

"And I didn't know what to do. I thought maybe—but _you never loved me back._"

And then she started screaming, a high pitched scream that kept going on and on and on and on, even as he gave a last sigh, even as she watched his eyes grow blank, even as they came and took him away, even as they put her in St. Mungo's, a awful scream that echoed forever within the confines of her mind, all the echoes of the guilt which had ruined not only her life, but his.

_We never said (regretting)_

_We wish we said (something)_

_We should have said (regretting)_

_We could've said (something)_


End file.
